Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise.

The average food item on a U.S. grocery shelf has traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacations.

Your own family resemblances are a frustrating code, most easily read by those who know you least.

At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.

Tomorrow these villagers would carry their secret icons into the church without any priest and light the candles themselves, moving together in single-minded grace. Like the school of the fish, so driven to righteousness they could flout the law, declare the safety of their souls, then go home and destroy the evidence.

The truth needs so little rehearsal.

I've about decided that's the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.